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Hi all. This is a collaborative thread for listing verified and confirmed facts and features about the ATARI 2600+. It will later help Al in writing a complete FAQ. Everyone can provide one or more questions with answers that have been confirmed by Plaion/Albert. Try to systematically include the link to the source post answering the question. I will start in a short moment (i'm still at work...) Please refrain from making non-constructive comments and engaging in debates. There are other threads for that Thank you in advance to those who will help.
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The 2016 Atari Flashback Portable is great, it has a rechargeable battery, an AV out port, many built-in games, and an SD card slot for adding even more games! All for about $50. It's generated a lot of enthusiasm, as well as many questions. Does the Atari Flashback Portable have a cartridge slot? No, it has a slot for an SD card, which is better. SD cards are smaller, cheaper, and can hold more information. What cards are compatible? Most name-brand SD cards, 8GB or smaller in size, should work with this unit. Note that the entire Atari 2600 library is only a few megabytes in size, these games are tiny by today's standards. My Atari Flashback Portable doesn't recognize the card! What can I do to fix it? Make sure it's formatted properly. Many AtariAge members have found that the SD Association's Card Formatter utility produces better results than the built-in utilities in Windows or Mac OS. My Atari Flashback Portable isn't reading the list of games on the SD card, or when I select something, it boots me out! What am I doing wrong? Per AtGames' instructions, you must put your Atari VCS (or 2600, if you prefer numbers) ROM files into a folder called Game. Yes, and? AtariAge members have learned that your ROMs must be unzipped .BIN files, with the following format: the first initial should be a capital letter, followed by all lowercase letters. For example, Spaceinv.BIN will work, but SPACEINVADER.BIN will not. Either a .bin or .BIN suffix should work fine. Place your ROMs into a folder called Game in the root of your 8GB or smaller SD card, and they should be detected by the unit. Can I change the box art for my custom ROMs, like with the AtGames Sega Genesis/MegaDrive portable? While the menu software looks the same, the MDB utility does not produce a file that is recognized by the Atari Flashback Portable. The Atari Flashback Portable looks a lot like the AtGames Sega Genesis/MegaDrive portable. What's different? It's different inside, and the battery isn't user replaceable (not as easily, anyway). The two units share a similar housing, but are not compatible with each other except for standard accessories like the MiniUSB charging cable and the optional AV out cable. Can the Atari Flashback Portable play every Atari VCS ROM ever? No, but it can play a lot of them. Some of them won't be compatible because of 2-player requirements, others are no fun without paddles, some require the player to use the right joystick (which doesn't exist on the portable), and others have technical quirks. Fortunately, the AtariAge community has come together to share what they've found, and has built a compatibility list. This compatibility list is derived from the AtariAge ROMs list, found here. Please share any other findings by posting in this thread. If you use a different ROM source, please note the name you used. If you're uncertain about how to add your findings to the spreadsheet, just make a comment in the thread and a community member will update the list as convenient. Alternately, check out Arenafoot's comprehensive rundown of compatibility here. Neat! Where can I get some of or all those ROMs to play on my Atari Flashback Portable? Right here on the totally tubular AtariAge! To make things easier, here is a set of renamed the ROMs available for download so they will work with the Flashback Portable: Game.zip. Radical! But wait, there's more! Cool. Anything else? Wicked awesome AtariAger Arenafoot has modified that Game folder with non-working ROMs removed, and homebrews and hacks added in. Games that have been modified to work with the portable are labeled "portable." Unzip the archive, and place the Game folder in the root of your SD card: AFBP_2016_02_12.zip This file was last updated February 12, 2017 to include a working DKVCS. Major props to Nukey Shay for that and other work in making these games work on the Portable. I hear there's a new Arenafoot ROMset updated December 6, 2017? You betcha! List of contents here GAME folder: Game.zip What if I need help with this, or want someone to just do it for me (I would pay for materials and shipping)? ArenaFoot is willing to help. And user Miner_1979er formatted it to not have any visible file extensions, to make things a little nicer? Yes indeedy! He used Python to make it pretty. GAME folder: Renamed Atari Flashback Portable Arenafoot ROMset updated December 6, 2017.zip What are these ugly little ._ files next to my ROMs? You'll likely only see this if your SD card has been in a Macintosh. The ._ files come from Mac OS, and are easily removed with the dotclean utility. Can Atari VCS ROMs be modified to play on the Atari Flashback Portable? Yes! Visit this AtariAge thread for a a large number of games that have been modified just for compatibility with the Atari Flashback Portable. There's also a wish list thread for those that haven't yet been addressed. Wouldn't it be better to just have a more compatible emulator? Maybe, but for those of us who waited 39 years for an official, affordable, portable Atari VCS, this is still pretty cool. If enough people buy it, maybe there will be updated versions in the future! There's a speculation thread for talking about new releases in this product line. My Atari Flashback Portable screen is scratched, right out of the box! Are you sure? The unit shipped with a plastic screen protector firmly stuck on for protection. Unlike the similar sticker on the Sega handheld that had Sonic on it, the Atari Portable's screen protector is clear. Peel it off from a corner and enjoy a better view of the screen. My Atari Flashback Portable has different games! There are some pre-production units in circulation with Jungle Hunt, a Flashback-specific version of Space Invaders, and two other games on them. Apart from the different onboard games, they're functionally identical, and you can add the "missing" ROMs to either machine. What's up with the different-looking version of Space Invaders on some units? The Flashback-specific version of Space Invaders was custom made for the AtGames Atari Flashback TV console, and is different from the vintage 1980 Atari VCS version. It was designed specifically for the Flashback unit, and is unlikely to work on an original Atari VCS console or emulator. Note that you can load the original 1980 Atari VCS Space Invaders ROM on the SD card. Where's the Frogger music? I remember music in Frogger. This looks different, too. The version of Frogger on the 2016 Atari Flashback units was created especially for this release. The original arcade game contained musical themes which are no longer available for licensing. Note that you can load the original 1982 Parker Brothers Atari VCS Frogger ROM on the SD card. Why is there a black and white/color switch, and why doesn't it stay BW unless I hold it down? This switch was added to enable functions that rely on the BW/color switch for game functions, such as Secret Quest. I don't like the way you formatted that compatibility list. I can do better! Great! Suggestions are welcome. We've locked the top headers to protect against vandalism/cluelessness, but if you post in this thread, an editor should make the changes for you. I don't like the list of ROMs you posted! I want a different set! Great! Zip up your "custom playlist" and post it in the thread below. If enough people like it, maybe it will show up in this top post! I want to play the Atari Flashback Portable on my television. How do I do that? There's an AV Out mini-jack port on the top of the unit. Here is a picture of the type of cable you need (thanks for the gnarly picture, Asaki!). With a typical stereo audio cable, video would be right/red and audio would be left/white. How about some links? Arenafoot's comprehensive review including game lists, places to buy, notes, and impressions Bill Logiduice's comprehensive review at Armchair Arcade, with gameplay videos The AtGames Flashback Zone with their online store, other products, and links to their Facebook and Twitter Amazon product review and ordering page AtGames releases these things all the time, should I just wait for the next one? Maybe. These are generally seasonal releases, and the 2016 version is no longer available for sale directly from AtGames' online store. The 2017 version looks very similar, featuring an onboard lineup of 70 games, featuring Namco games. It will include a homebrew version of Pac-Man, and the original 2600 versions of Dig Dug, Galaxian, and Xevious. The Activision games Pitfall, River Raid, and Kaboom are featured on the display box as well. Everything we know about this to date is posted here. The extent to which the emulator and compatibility will change is currently unknown. Have you played Atari today? Why yes, yes I have. The Atari Flashback Portable lets me bring the chunky retro gaming experience everywhere my active lifestyle needs to go.
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This is a work in progress.. will be happy to add anything missing - Greg A few bits of information, rules and guidelines on posting. Short links to our sub-forums: TI-99/4A Computers http://ti99.atariage.com TI-99/4A Development http://dev99.atariage.com Please read the AtariAge site guidelines which apply to and are enforced in our subs. Our sub-forums are divided to help cater to the varied interests in our beloved platform. The parent sub-forum, TI-99/4A Computers, contains general information and conversation regarding the TI-99/4A and its siblings, such as the 99/2, 99/8, CC-40, and BASICALCS. The sub-forum TI-99/4A Development is for conversations, information, announcements, etc. pertaining to programming, tinkering, or the development of software or hardware for these computers. This division is not intended to be a separation of the community but rather a way for those who have little interest in development but moreso in general discussions to focus their time on the fun-zone, while those who take more interest in the deep-down nitty-gritty and not so much general shenanigans to focus their attention just the same. The rest of us can spend all the time we want and will peruse both subs with reckless abandon. Insofar as development is concerned, once hardware or software has been completed or is at least ready for general consumption, an announcement should be made in the general TI-99/4A Computers forum for all to partake. Further development and inquiries should still be continued within the TI-99/4A Development sub-forum. The forum leader will move threads to a more appropriate forum. This may also be done by request should a thread be started in the wrong forum by accident or the trajectory changes from general to development or vice-versa. The forum leader will also merge identical threads started in both forums into a single thread in the proper forum. Per AtariAge guidelines, please refrain from posting identical threads in both sub-forums as way to ensure the topic gets viewed. Many people already browse both subs, and if your topic pertains more to development rather than general, or vice-versa, the thread should exist in the appropriate forum. As well, multiple threads created on the same topic in the same forum will be merged. Regular members can edit a post for 60 minutes after submission. This allows you to fix any issues you may notice with the post right away. Subscribers can edit posts for 30 days. In the Marketplace and Programming forums you can edit your posts indefinitely, since the flexibility of allowing editing of posts outweighs the potential abuse of the edit functionality. If you make a duplicate post in a thread, which can happen by accident or some unforeseen technical glitch, report the post by clicking on the "report" link at the bottom of the post and indicate in the report that the post is a duplicate. If you are not a subscriber, please help support AtariAge by using the eBay BBCodes ebay, ebayseller, and ebaystore when posting links to eBay! Click here for more information. Anything you would like to share with your fellow 99ers but is seriously off-topic for the forum may be posted in the official off-topic thread, located here To find the most popular threads click on sort by and select most popular. All of us are ready and willing to provide answers to your TI-99 questions if we can, some will just chime in if they cannot, and others will just lurk. If you have any questions specifically pertaining to the operation of our forums, please feel free inquire of the forum leader via Private Message (PM,) or one of the global moderators. BEFORE POSTING QUESTIONS PLEASE READ THE UPDATED TI-99/4A FAQ HERE: https://www.arcadeshopper.com/wp/ti-99-4a-faq/
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I'm trying to get up to speed on Atari programming; One of my problems is that the threads are mainly by experts (which is good) who are using jargon, nicknames and acronyms I don't recognise, so I go into a near infinite recursion of googling/searching old posts or threads. One other problem is that it's hard to tell, when reading a thread, wether the technique being discussed is still "start of the art" or whether its been superseded. Is there a glossary/FAQ for Atari 8 bit programming? I saw a reference to "Ironman Wiki", which sounds promising, but it seems to not exist anymore, at least at the links given https://wiki.strotmann.de/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Ironman%20Atari BugBear